French politicians could learn a lot from the fun side of Obama's win

"That you Joe? I'm jus' chillin' out an' doin' a J. You?"

As the curtain comes down on the American presidential election it's time to congratulate Obama and offer commiserations to Romney. The battle for the White House, like those for power in France or any other country, had its share of underhanded tactics and unhealthy insinuations from both camps, but American elections also contain another element - fun - and fun is sadly absent on the French political scene.

This was not lost on Marie Brunerie, a French  specialist on American politics who posted an interesting article on the Nouvel Observateur's Plus section this morning. And "fun" was at the top of her list of cultural and political differences between the French and American ways of conducting politics.

Brunerie regrets that French politics are so relatively dreary and lacklustre and that autoderision is non-existent. There were many amusing moments during the American campaign and she chose to illustrate this by mentioning both Romney and Obama's often amusing and light-hearted appearances on late night TV shows such as Jay Leno's Tonight Show, David Letterman's Late Show and Jimmy Fallon's Late Night show, during which Obama, who was named 'Slammer-in-Chief' for the evening, and himself slow jammed the news with the resident band.

Now I'm not a betting man but I'll gladly bet my best bottle of Bordeaux that we won't be seeing anything like that in France for a long time to come. Can you imagine Hollande or any other French politician hangin' out an' havin' fun just days before an election? And how about the witty comments that both candidates came up with during their back-to-back speeches at the Al Smith Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria?

Brunerie is not the first French commentator to lament the lack of warmth and humour in French politics of course, and the glaring fun quotient difference between French and American politics and elections jumps out of screens and pages and lands in the lap of any honest French journalist or citizen who follows American elections.

If wit was....food, politics is a banquet in America and it is stale bread and water rations in France, a country where poiliticians think fun means sarcasm, mockery, derision and insult. This is a country in which dozens of magistrates and judges paid for by taxpayers have to constantly deal with an average of a couple of dozen slander and libel cases which have been brought by politicians against other politicians.

I am reminded of the particularly graceless and tasteless remark which NIcolas Sarkozy aimed at François Hollande during their televised debate between the two votes at the last election. Referring to the condescending 'Mr joker' nickname given to Hollande by his Socialist rivals he said "this isn't a joke competition." And Hollande himself seemed to abandon any humour he may have had before he became a candidate when he lost a lot of weight to avoid being the butt of cruel jokes about his portly appearace.

He did this because he realised that humour and being relaxed are not winning tactics in French politics and he went on to embrace his new nickname of 'Mr Normal', earned because his revised and much more seriously sober demeanor was welcomed by French voters who had had enough of Sarkozy's more brash and bling-bling style.

His political advisors had persuaded him that the French want their presidents to be seen to be above the fray and conform to the Gaullian and Regalian image of being "the first among all French citizens." One even said that being president involved "an almost Jupiterian dimension. And Jupiter doesn't laugh, he rains fire down upon the world."

And who indeed will ever forget the mocking tone used by François Mitterand during his debate with Jacques Chirac during the 1988 presidentail race? He responded to an opinion offered by Chirac with the cheap and juvenile jibe "you are absolutely right Mister the Prime minister." Then there was the abysmal excuse for a debate between Front Nationale leader Marine le Pen and left-wing loudmouth Jean-Luc Mélenchon. A litany of insult and ignominy, I related it here.

But it isn't only during campaigns that French politicians lack humour and grace. It's the same story when the battle is over and the guns go silent. Compare Ségolène Royal's petulant foot-stamping tantrum call for the French to take to the streets to protest on the evening she she lost to Sarkozy in 2007 to the elegance and generosity of John McCain's speech after he was beaten by Obama in 2008. The same contrast is to be seen between Sarkozy's sulky take-my-ball-home 'that's it I'm quitting politics' reaction after losing to Hollande and Romney's gracious concession speech yesterday after he had learned that he had lost. But first prize for the worst ever bad loser in modern French politics goes to Giscard d'Estaing. Here is the ludicrously pompous and insulting manner with which said "au revoir" to the nation, got up, turned his back, left the room, and left a contempt-laden empty chair behind him after losing his presidency to Mitterand in 1981.

Cynics and weary sneerers will doubtless say that all the wisecracking and courtesy is a smarmy put-on and that it is all designed to garner votes. They are right in some repects and in absolute terms of course, but it's not because someone doesn't like someone at work because they beat them at badminton that they cannot be civilised and polite when they find themselves in the same room. That's not hypocrisy, it's a way of ensuring that whatever people's differences, it is important that participation in society - and politics - should be about mutual respect as well as winning, and losing, graciously.

Besides, those same sneerers and cynics are also the first to complain about the deleterious manner with which politicians conduct their debates. They cannot have it both ways.

I would like to believe that despite the cut-and-thrust and high stakes in politics it should still possible for French politicians to do much more to respect the institutions they represent, respect each other, respect themselves and, most of all, respect the public, who are entitled to more than the name-calling, petty insults and childish slanging matches which replaced political debate here long ago.

And a good way to start would be for them to take themselves less seriously. Politicians here should be setting an example when it comes to debating issues of national importance and the occasional dose of humour would help to grease the wheels.

So c'mon François, you're the president so why don't you set the ball rolling? How about a dose of autoderision to help you explain your U-Turn on VAT? After all, like Obama in his first debate, you loused up so 'fess up. Maybe you could wear a grass skirt and a tiara to work tomorrow? How about a quick quip about the end of your presidential honeymoon? Give us anything that will put a smile on our faces for once.

After all, god and his dog knows we have precious little to smile about right now....

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin'!

That song hits the nail right on the head. I was reminded of that a few weeks ago when I first watched the video below, which includes much of the amateur footage of the last few sordid hours of Mutassim Gaddafi's life after he had been captured by the rebels towards the end of the Libyan War, as well as the aftermath of his execution. I have watched it a couple of times since. The text overlays, which are thankfully not too overly prevalent, make clear that the video was put together by its compiler in an attempt to praise Mutassim and serve as a kind of testimony to him. But all that was completely irrelevant to me and the longer the video went on the more I ignored the words because the powerful juxtaposition of image, music and the offhandedly bestial anger and vengeance of the war-hardened voices and the pitifully oppressing banality of what was happening gave me a completely different impression of what I was seeing which drowned out all ideological, political and other petty earthly considerations.

My impression consisted of a mixed bag of emotions. Intense sadness at the tragic futility of war and the pointless cruelty of it all, helplessness in the knowledge that human beings fight and kill each other and that they always have done and probably always will, and - perhaps most of all - humbled awe at the fact that we are all, even the most powerful among us, nothing but tiny little specks of near-nothingness in the bigger picture who are all destined to die and eventually disappear without trace from the history of the Universe.

This video reminded me that death is The Great Leveler who always wins out in the end, despite all the fleeting and ultimately futile power games that human beings play…

Charlie Hebdo cartoon enrages French Catholics and so much the better

Happy Family snapshot

Oh dear, the Catholic Church and its followers are NOT happy bunnies today, and it's all the fault of that nasty horrid little Charlie Hebdo who has been picking on them again.

The impudent French satirical mag has been a bad boy yet again by placing a truculent cartoon on the front page of its latest issue. It depicts 'The Father' with 'The Son' euhhh, 'behind' it, and "The Holy Ghost" sticking out of bringing up the rear. The caption reads "Cardinal Vingt-Trois has Three Fathers." It has been condemned by church leaders and followers alike and France's Catholic Twitterati has been working overtime with anger.

But why has Charlie Hebdo published the cartoon? Because leading French Catholics such as bishops and cardinals have been waging a viciously homophobic campaign against the government's plans to legalise same-sex marriage, that's why.

Cardinal Vingt-Trois ('vingt-trois means 23 in English) has been at the helm of the campaign, which has seen various church leaders assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia, polygamy and other crimes. Not only are they infamous and deliberately inflammatory comparisons to make, they are dangerously wrong.

Cardinal 23 has said that same-sex marriage would represent "the marriage of a few imposed upon all." He is wrong. Nobody is imposing anything on anyone, the idea is to give people the freedom to live how they wish.

Cardinal 23 says that the church respects "the sexual reality of human existence." He, and the church, are wrong. The reality of human sexuality is that homosexuality has always existed and is thus a part of human reality.

Cardinal 23 says that "to impose within marriage and the family a vision of man without recognising sexual difference would be a deceptive sham which would shake the foundations of our society and impose discrimination between children." He is wrong. Again, society does recognise the existence of sexual difference and that's precisely why same-sex marriage is being envisaged. But - and ironically - he is right about children because given his views he evidently has no difficulty in discriminating between children and adults who are not what he thinks they should be. For him and others of his ilk some are good/saved and others are bad/lost.

Cardinal 23 bemoans the absence of a national debate on the matter. Wrong again. This issue has been debated by governments, the press and the people for at least 40 years and the result is that the majority of French citizens now support same-sex marriage, which has been a long-standing demand articulated by large sections of the public.

Cardinal 23 is not only anti-homosexual and same-sex marriage, he is anti-abortion, artificial insemination, stem cell research and more and calls them pagan, sectarian and atheist practices.

His list of accusations and condemnation is long and many other church leaders support him.

There is nothing wrong with the Cardinal expressing his point of view of course, that's his right. On the other hand he and his henchmen have sparked off an ugly public debate and the Catholic Church is de facto trying to influence a secular government. There's nothing wrong with that either. After all, all is fair in love and war.

What is wrong however is to expect the rest of society to refrain from riposting. The church has deliberately picked a fight with society and it is beginning to realise that society is fighting back, hence Charlie Hebdo's cartoon. There's nothing blasphemous about it, at least not in a free country. It insults religion? So what? He and his crew have spent centuries insulting the preferences of real human beings, not just a belief.

Besides, given the well-documented history of widespread pedophelia within the Catholic Church it should not be throwing stones from it's glass house and it has no lessons to give anyone.

The fact is that the Catholic Church is getting a well-deserved dose of its own medecine. Besides, Charlie Hebdo's cartoon is a very mild, almost placebo, criticism of the church compared to the church's own putrid and degenerate slander and slurs which, may I repeat, assimilate homosexuality and same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy.


The Catholic Church should be grateful that Charlie Hebdo has not printed a cartoon of a priest being fellated by a choirboy. That has happened before, and the church may now consider itself warned that if its despicable stigmatisation of people's sexual preferences continues it may well find itself being reminded yet again of its age-old rank hypocrisy and double standards in the matter.

Houlala ! Ashley Madison makes extra-marital waves in France

Danielle, Bernadette, Carla and Valérie will appreciate...

You would have thought that an Internet site which sells offers of adultery would be surplus to requirements in France given the long-standing reputation of the French for indulging in extra-marital affairs, but Noel Biderman, CEO of adultery hookup site Ashley Madison thinks otherwise, which is why he recently launched a French language version and has invested in a controversial publicity campaign in France to help it get off the ground.

Described by Wikipedia as 'an online dating service and social network service marketed primarily to people who are already in a relationship', the site's English language pages for the French market go further, proudly claiming that Ashley Madison 'is the most successful website for finding an affair and cheating partners. Have an Affair today on Ashley Madison. Thousands of cheating wives and cheating husbands signup everyday looking for an affair.'

Biderman opened his American site in 2001 but hesitated for a long time before investing in France, reasoning that whereas America offered fertile ground for his services given the relatively strict adherence to faithfulness which makes having an affair difficult there, the French had no such qualms and as such didn't want or need him. 

He changed his mind however after he became aware that there had been 850,000 hits on the U.S. site by people living in France in just 12 months. It was time for him to swing into action.

So he put the French site online at the end of last month and embarked on a boisterous publicity campaign. But the campaign soon stalled because his first ad poster - which depicted the last four French presidents with adultery-betraying lipstick marks on their faces - was boycotted by poster advertising companies who presumably feared the possibility of a legal backlash for slander, even though all four men are or were known to be notorious womanisers. It was only put up on two hoardings in Paris.

But those two hoardings were enough to earn Biderman's outfit a massive boost from the French press when they got wind of the story, whereupon they splashed it all over their front pages. 

Even better news followed when he launched, or tried to launch, his promotional TV video. It showed a man and a woman exchanging languorous and lascivious regards and kissing each other while a voice-off announces softly that "this woman has a husband, but it isn't him."

French publicity watchdogs went ballistic and instantly banned it on the grounds that "the explicit reference to marital links contained in the allegation 'this woman has a husband but it isn't him' is of a nature to shock the religious and philosophical convictions of television viewers."

This is a very curious (hypocritical?) reason for banning an ad in France given the country's professedly strong secular beliefs, and Biderman was quick to point that out, but his were only crocodile tears as he knew full well that the authorities - like the press - had done his job for him and put him back on the front pages. Mission accomplished and the site is now said to be ticking over quite nicely thank you ker-ching ker-ching.

It is too soon to say whether or not Ashley Madison France will become a major money-spinner for Biderman, and much depends on whether or not he can persuade the French that his site offers advantages over more traditional, and unique, ways of organising an extra-marital affair.

The market certainly does exist though, and a 2009 survey found that 18% of French men and 10% of French women declared themselves to be of an unfaithful nature. Biderman can also take heart from the fact that gleeden.com, a larger competitor, declared that its French clientèle were "the world champions of infidelity." The French press was only too pleased to hear it and proudly published the good news.

At the end of the day though, I'll never know how good or bad the Ashley Madison site is because as an unmarried man I am not in a position to be able to 'profit' from the site's offer.

Mind you, Biderman isn't a likely client either, or at least that's what he says. He is happily married with two children and he is also on the record as saying that not only would he "not cheat on his wife"*, he would be horrified to learn that she had used his site for the same reason....

(* But he would say that. Now wouldn't he...)

'Le piston' - or 'using your contacts to help you get what you need'

No Fripouille, not THIS kind of piston, you silly boy *sigh...*

Jobs for the boys, string-pulling, immoral, a useful networking tool, call it what you will but 'le piston' - using one's connections to find a job, an education, or help in other areas - is a reality here in France. Have I used it? Of course I have. After all, 'I am not more Royalist than the King' as the French say, and it can be very helpful when living in France, a country which doesn't always make life as easy for foreign residents as it does for French citizens, and in which most people use le piston when they feel they need to. Here are a few examples of how I have used it and how it has helped me even without me trying to exploit it.

For example, it can be very useful when dealing with France's notoriously complex labyrinth of civil service administration departments and formalities, as I found out about 20 years ago when it helped me to get out of a hopeless Catch 22-style fix.

This story happened when I was living in a small village with my then girlfriend, and I needed a document called a 'fiche d'état civil' to enable me to change my driving licence. It was a document containing details of your marital state, births and deaths. I say 'was' because it was abandoned in 2000.

Anyway, I needed one and off I went to the local Mairie to obtain it. I produced my passport to identify myself even though I was well known there seeing as my girlfriend's family had lived in the village for literally centuries. "Sorry" said the lady, "I'll need to see your birth certificate as well." "No problem" said I and drove back home, picked up my birth certificate, went back to the Mairie, and proudly placed it in front of her. There ensued the following conversation.

"But it hasn't been updated since you were born."
"Yes I know, and that's because British birth certificates only contain details of birth and the identity of parents and it isn't used to record subsequent deaths and births as is the case for its French equivalent. So it can't be updated and even if I renewed it it would contain exactly the same information as it does now."
"Well in that case I can't give you a fiche d'état civil, not now, and not in the future either."
"But how can I update my driving licence without one?"
"You can't. Sorry, but the law is the law."
"But you know who I am! I've been popping in for one thing or another for years!"
"Sorry."

And that was that. I related this story at dinner that evening to my girlfriend's family and they found a solution to my problem within seconds. "Phone Chantal" said someone, "she'll look after that for you."

'Chantal' was a family relative who just happened to be the Mayor of a large village of about 5000 inhabitants about 20 kilometres away. I phoned her the next day and she told me to pop round to her Mairie where she would personally give me a fiche d'état civil. And she did. Job sorted. Le piston oblige.

Le piston also helps when you get into trouble with the law for minor road offences, on the condition that you are friends with a gendarme. I, like most other people, have had to pay fines for speeding, illegal parking and similar offences over the years. And I always paid on the spot because I knew I was guilty and it would have been churlish to argue that I wasn't.

One day though I was booked and recieved a hefty fine for failing to stop fully on a white line at a stop junction. I didn't agree with that as I was convinced that I had stopped, if only briefly, but nor did I argue and I took my ticket politely but didn't pay on the spot. Then I telephoned a gendarme friend and explained my situation. He believed my version of events and told me not to worry. Two days later he called me back to say "I've had your fine cancelled", and that was the end of it. (As a footnote to that, I hear that this particular use of the police piston - to get fines cancelled - is harder to do these days, so don't count on it working like it used to.)

Another story involving le piston happened a long time ago when I asked an estate agent friend to help me find an apartment. My problem was that I wasn't earning much at the time and didn't have enough money for the deposit. So he found me an apartment within days and I didn't have to pay a deposit, an expensive obligation which is very difficult to get around.

Then there's the world of work. I am a translator who works within a fairly narrow range of what could be called 'niche' markets. There are few opportunities for work there but on the other hand those in this sector who need translators all know each other and I have often found business by being introduced to new clients by existing ones who recommend me. In fact this has worked so well that I don't even need to go out and prospect for new clients any more

So much for my experiences, but there are many other areas in which it works. One of them is education. If you have children and know well-placed people in local education authorities or headmasters/mistresses it is relatively easy to circumvent laws which oblige parents to send their children to schools in their catchment area, particularly in cities. So if you live in a more modest area but have high hopes for your children it is possible to to place them in better schools in better areas of a city by using your connections. That may cost more travel time for the children, but many people think it's worth it. It's the same for the better universities. Your child will still need to take an entrance exam even if you use le piston, but at least they are guaranteed to be pre-selected and to be able take it.

Graduates with well-connected parents find it easier to get good jobs, and even in less exalted jobs le piston can work wonders if you are friends with, say, the owner of a local business who has a job on offer which may suit your son or daughter's needs.

In other words, le piston is everywhere, whether we like it or not. As to the French themselves and their attitudes towards it, 88% of them thought that le piston takes priority over talent in a survey carried out 2 years ago and whereas 75% of them would use it, only 20% said they would never use it out of principle, although I suspect that many of the 20% may well have been telling little fibs.

Is it immoral? I don't intend to take firm a stance in this blog, which is just here to explain how and when it can work and has done for me, although I am inclined to think that it isn't a uniquely French phenomenon and I am convinced that it is no more prevalent here than Britain or elsewhere.

One thing's for sure though, and that is that without it I would have had a hell of a job getting my driving licence changed, I would have had to pay a heavy fine I didn't deserve, I may have ended up homeless at one time, and without it my professional life would be much more difficult than it is.

Have you had any experiences involving le piston? Is it a natural reflex or should it be condemned? My jury's out on that. What about yours?

Coffee and Cognac in Paris

I had an hour to kill before catching the TGV back to Lyon from Paris, so I sat down on a café terrace opposite the Gare de Lyon and ordered a coffee and a cognac. Bliss. It's as if they were created to be drunk together.....
A votre santé !

"Sport is the apprenticeship of fascism"

Gestapo headqua...euhh, a French school

I suppose I'd rather read that than be blind but those are the most depressing words I have read for weeks. They were spoken by a young woman who was describing her schooling, they and other, similar, opinions are from this article in online French daily Rue89, and they are symptomatic of the massive failure of the archaic self-contradictions of the French education system.

"For me, the word 'shame' is synonymous with the swimming pool." "I couldn't give a damn about sport. I thought it was stupid." "They didn't let me play rugby because I was too useless." "The sordid universe of the changing rooms at 8 in the morning."

That is the tragic reality of how the majority of French kids see sport, but it isn't the kids' fault in any way. There are always going to be some children who do not like sport of course, but the generalised loathing it inspires today is extremely worrying because it is the direct reflection of shortcomings in the way French schools are run and, on a broader scale, the pressures that society places on children.

The grand paradox of the French educational system in modern times is that it is still rooted in outdated philosophical approaches and methods of thought which were abandoned many years ago in more progressive countries. The great irony is that the teaching profession here is majoritarily left-leaning, which means that egalitarianism is theoretically espoused and the very idea of competition is an anathema, yet in practice the system is solidly structured around the very principles of soulless abnegation, the fear of failure and achievement-at-all-costs which the profession ostensibly despises. The word 'capitalism' was banned from French school books for many years because it was thought to embody a dog-eat-dog philosophy, yet at the same time teachers would (and still do) spend half their time establishing hierarchies amongst their pupils via the daily use of grades, marks out of 20, and the humiliation of those who are not 'up to standard.'

Probably the most used and abused word in French schools is 'nul' - 'useless.' 'You're useless' is thrown around like confetti by exasperated teachers who use it as a form of discipline and punishment. Children are deliberately ridiculised in front of their classmates by teachers who somehow manage to delude themselves that it will inspire them to perform better. But it doesn't, and they don't. French children are taught to keep quiet, they do not have the right to express themselves or their individuality (in the name of 'equality' maybe?) the professor is God, and woe betide any child who dares to question what he or she is being told.

And so it is with sport. Largely frowned upon by a profession which considers that it promotes unhealthily competitive must-win attitudes, it is at the same time organised in a highly competitive manner. Children are given marks for their performances, these marks count towards end-of-year results, and coming last is often seen as a sign that the child is lazy.What happens if you don't get the desired grades at the end of the year? You have to do that year again, which means your classmates move onwards and upwards while you have to stay behind and study with children a year younger than yourself. The feeling of humiliation and failure that this almost always leads to can easily be imagined. It is well-documented moreover.

It is this fundamental hypocrisy which has led to the rise of a €2 billion a year legal market for coffee tablets and other stimulants to help children keep up with the frantic pace of homework, tests, exams and studies. Depression due to the pressures of school life is rife amongst French schoolchildren, many of whom go to school with a heavy heart.

And it's not as if the pressure and hierarchical approach gets results. Contrary to what many foreigners may think or believe, the French education system and the results it obtains are regularly criticised by OECD and E.U. studies and France is either in or just above the bottom third of results obtained in crucial subjects such as French and maths. Creativity is almost non-existant and both teacher and pupil absenteeism are abnormally high.

All that said, it's not just the education system which needs a shake-up, it's society's expectations of children. They learn early on that if your breasts are too large - or too small - or if you are overweight, in other words if you don't look like the skinny models used to sell clothes in childrens' magazines you are just one notch away from being considered as a freak.

You may say that things have always been like that and you would be right, but the onus placed on French children today to succeed is far greater than anything experienced in the past, and failure, unlike before when you could, say, get an apprenticeship or lower your sights, often means long-term unemployment in a country where unemployment rates for young people are higher than in almost any other major western country except Spain.

Some children are more competitive in nature than others. There is nothing wrong with that of course, but sport, like any discipline, should not just be about winning and getting good marks. Sport should be about doing one's best and trying to improve, whatever one's level of ability. It should be about fun and cameraderie and children should be encouraged and praised, whatever the results obtained.

That's how it was for me and for me to see the very idea of sport and intellectual endeavour reduced to the point where it's only the grades which count is a damning indictment of our times. If we can no longer teach children how to play sport without it being a source of pressure, dread and depression the teaching profession and society in general are guilty of depriving children of their basic rights.